Episode 124: For All Those Who Toil Relentlessly...

I've had my share of stubborn pride. I've pushed and worked through some of the worst of the worst states I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing physically. I've watched as some just bowed out for awhile and then came back to work claiming that the stress was just getting to them. Many of my co-workers and even some close to me have told me that maybe the stress at work was getting to me.

Still, there was one position upon which, I stood adamant. I've always said that it was weakness on the part of those who took off due to stress while secretly harboring a bit of envy that they could simply take off for a month or so.

Today, at the doctor's office, I finally gave in and expressed how I needed some time off. If it was another thing I'd always said it was that little fact that, "Sure, I've got the time and I can afford the visits but there's no way I'd ever get it." I was right.

I could whine about how unfair it is but we all know the bottom line on that one. I've been as sick as a dog for the past few days. Did that make a difference? No. Has the fact that this year has been the year that my immune system decided that I didn't need it any more made one bit of difference? No. So, it's only quite natural that I'm just going to have to grin and bear it.

I've come to understand those that work and work and get nothing in return for it. I raise my water bottle to you all. It seems like, more and more, those of us that put in the work are only asked to put in more and more work only to rack up all that sick leave time but never touch it on pain of reprisal from the system that bestows it upon us.

It's sickening isn't it? We go on suffering our daily crosses and bearing them, most times, without complaint. When it's time for us to go into our respective corners for a bit of rest, our corner people aren't there. It's completely sickening.

I still see people who don't work, getting money and living better than I do. All the while, these people are not asked to submit urine tests for drug analysis but you and I have to submit them so that we can work for what little we actually get out of the deal. I see many of us who work hardly getting by at all while those who refuse to work get a living handed to them. I wonder whatever happened to those posters bearing the rhetoric that no one owes you a living? That's what it is, people, rhetoric. Only that, and nothing more.

Perhaps it's this very reason I'm disappointed in our new president. He's already going with a tactic that didn't work in the first place only to reprise that bit. Had each of us, the worker, the toiling taxpayer, had received a slice of that $700 Billion plus dollar pie, imagine what we could have done. The current unemployment rate would not have mattered at least for one year. Many of us would have had more than what we would have needed to put ourselves into business. The economy would have been more than stimulated...it would have been kickstarted the right way. Why won't it? Because it makes sense and politicians cannot line their pockets immediately.

I guess my fatigue is getting the better of me in this instance. It's no secret that I despise my job. It's no secret that I want out and I'm working on that.

Sometimes, like all of you who go through your own trials and tribulations, I wonder if this whole thing is just worth it. I ask the same questions you do. When will it end? When will I finally see the sum total of what I'm working for? When are the others going to get off their butts and hop to it?

I honestly don't think those questions will ever be answered. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I say we raise our glasses high tonight and lay ourselves down.

I say we start taking everything we deserve.

I say it's time the tables are turned.